Russia

Its not clear whether Trump has ever spoken with the Russian chairman. Putin was invited to but did not attend a 2013 beauty pageantry in Moscow, according to one of the oligarchs who helped coordinate the event. Will he become my new best friend? Trump wondered beforehand.

But the pair may have communicated through intermediaries. In 2014, Trump told a National Press Club luncheon: I was in Moscow lately and I spoke, indirectly and immediately, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success. A year earlier, Trump told MSNBC: I do have a relationship and I can tell you that hes very interested in what were doing here today.

Last November, Trump claimed in a debate that he got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minute. They appeared in separate, pre-taped segments and were not on set together.

Putin has never called Trump a genius; he employed a Russian term that can be translated as colorful or flamboyant. He also once called him talented, undoubtedly. You can read more about Putins statements here.

He mentioned the N-word one time. I was shocked to hear him mention the N-word. You know what the N-word is, right? He mentioned it. I was shocked .

Trump no proof for this suggestion that Putin referred to Barack Obama utilizing a racial slur. It is possible Trump was referring to nuclear weapon; a solitary conservative blog employed the word to describe some of the Russian chairwomen statements about nuclear weapon. Though Putin and Obama have a chilly relationship, the US president told the Atlantic earlier this year: The truth is, actually, Putin, in all of our meetings, is scrupulously polite, very frank. Our meetings are very businesslike.

Trump has repeatedly tried to do business in Russia, and his refusal to release tax returns prevents him proving that he has no assets there. In the same press conference, Trump admitted, I guess likely I sell condos to Russians, and dedicated a slightly magnified account of a $95 m condominium marketing. In 2007, he said he wanted to invest in Russia, saying in a deposition: We will be in Moscow at some point.

In 2008, his son Donald Jr told a real estate seminar, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets, and We ensure a lot of money pouring in from Russia.

In 2013, Trump held a beauty pageantry in Moscow and received a share of the $14 m investment expend to bring it there. I have a great relationship with many Russians, and almost all of the oligarchs were in the room, he told Real Estate Weekly afterward, as he discussed his hopes for a Moscow hotel that is likely ran nowhere. Similarly, Trump either traveled to the city or drew up ambitious real estate projects in Russia in 1987 and 1996, according to his memoir and court documents first unearthed by the Washington Post.

Trump could demonstrate he has no financial interests in Russia by releasing his tax returns, as every presidential nominee has done in the last 40 years.

Dont forget, Europe got together why, chiefly did they get together? so that they could beat the United States when it comes to making money, in other words, foreign trade. 24 July, interview with Meet the Press

The European Union began in 1952 as the European Coal and Steel Community, meant to unite the nations through trade and economic ties, and thus reduce the possibilities of war. In subsequent decades it gained new members and grew into a common market that promoted not only trade ties but a transnational union for infrastructure, joint regulation and open perimeters. The motives behind the 64 -year project were and are complex and diverse, but taken together they are not able to reasonably be said to be about rivalry with the US, which has benefited from a stable and unified Europe.

Minimum wage

Trump changed his position on the minimum wage three times this week, including within a single interview. On 26 July, when Fox News host Bill OReilly asked him where he would define a federal minimum wage, he repeated a stance from May that the US does not need one: There doesnt have to be.

He then immediately changed his position: Well, I would leave it, and create it somewhat. A day afterwards in Florida he said he wanted a $10 an hour minimum wage, up from the current level of $7.25, and confirmed to a reporter: federal.

Conspiracy

All I did is point out the fact that on the encompas of the National Enquirer there was a picture of him[ Ted Cruzs father Rafael Cruz] and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast. Now, Ted never denied that it was his father. Instead he said, Donald Trump. I had nothing to do with it. 22 July in Cleveland

Trump expended his first day as the official Republican nominee returning to a false narrative about the father of his primary adversary, Ted Cruz. The tycoon tried to bolster the conspiracy theory by saying Cruz had never denied it, which is itself false: on 22 April, Cruzs campaign said: The narrative is false. That is not Rafael in the picture.

On 3 May, Cruzs campaign further rejected the claim, calling it a garbage narrative and clearly Donald wants to talk about garbage.

Trumps suggestion originates with a tabloid, the National Enquirer, which had published photos it alleged proved Rafael Cruz next to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated John F Kennedy. The article offer no proof besides a single photo that is so grainy that even Oswalds distinctive features are blurred.

Oswald and the other man in the photo are not having breakfast but standing on a New Orleans street, at a 1963 event in support of Fidel Castro.

Democrats

Trump has it backwards with his accusation that Senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clintons running mate, accepted more political gifts than former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, who went to the supreme court to challenge a corruption conviction for accepting about $175,000 in undisclosed gifts.

Kaine accepted and disclosed $161,033 in gifts while he was lieutenant governor and governor of Virginia, from 2002 through 2009 years when the state had no limits on political gifts. The vast majority, according to his disclosures, were for travel expenses, and the largest was from Barack Obamas 2008 campaign. The largest personal gift received from a donor who dedicated Kaine free use of Caribbean vacation home, estimated worth $18,000. Kaine has never been accused of taking undisclosed gifts.